Hiking Signal Peak / Kofa NWR

Hiking & Camping in Kofa NWR | Hiking Signal Peak | January 2025

Jess: After crossing into AZ from CA, we got gas in Yuma then began driving North on US-95, which was a new road for us. Every time we’ve returned to AZ since moving away in 2015, we’ve managed to visit places that we missed while living here, and today was no exception. Today we would be driving to Kofa NWR, which lies to the East of the highway between Yuma and Quartzite. We hoped to find a dispersed campsite and spend a few days here enjoying the Sonoran Desert, and allowing Curtis to hike a prominent peak. We drove up to Palm Canyon road, then began driving through public land into the reserve to find a site.

We knew that Quartzite is a popular area in the winter for people who live on the road, and that there was even a large gathering going on not far away. But besides the beginning part on BLM land, it really didn’t feel too busy or crowded. We drove several miles back until we found a large dispersed site that was unoccupied, then set up for the next couple days. Curtis planned to do his big hike the next day, but unable to wait that long to hike he set out on a shorter trek up to a nearby peak. We walked Charlie up the dirt road a ways (though definitely not as far as she had been walking with me during our week alone) and enjoyed spending most of our afternoon outside. That evening, we watched a glorious sunset and proclaimed our love for Arizona over and over again.

The next morning, we got up early and I quickly made our breakfast and tea while Curtis prepared for his hike. He expected the hike to take a good portion of the day, so Charlie and I made ourselves comfortable at the site.

Curtis: Signal Peak holds the distinction of being quite a prominent peak and the highest point in Yuma County, and based on what we could see from its base, the views from the top of the surrounding ranges had to be grand.

The hike to the top of Signal Peak is a well established and short, if steep, route coming up from the North side of the mountain. Unfortunately, the road to get to the trailhead is a little less well established and follows a wash for the last two miles. A wash, that I had on good authority, would wreck the van if given the opportunity. When picking our campsite I hadn’t even attempted to go down that road and instead knew that I would just add on the extra miles from our campsite.

I started by hiking cross country North from our campsite. The whole region up to the base of the mountains was relatively flat, desert landscape. And more importantly, the vegetation was never particularly dense – lots of cholla and cats claw, but still plenty of room to weave my way through the thorns.

I made good time and soon found myself approaching a canyon that I thought was the road/wash. I was mistaken in this but the walls of the canyon were quite impressive. I crossed over to the opposite side where I found a game trail that led past a tall tower and on the opposite side of the tower I found the road. 4 miles in and I had hit the road!

Fortunately, the road walk was about as flat as my cross country trek, and the road through the canyon was incredible. Tall and steep rocks lined both sides of the canyon with lots of towers, small arches, and pinnacles. If it weren’t for the sandy road, this would have been an excellent and scenic place to camp.

Two miles along the road and I reached the start of the trail which headed off along a side wash before starting up along the slopes. My easy walking was done at this point. The trail quickly gained a lot of elevation and I also noticed that there was someone ahead of me by about a quarter mile. I hadn’t seen any cars at the trailhead, so they must have also walked in on the road.

The trail worked its way up and up. Towards the top, the trail dissipated among the slick rock and I caught up with my fellow hiker. She was a native Southwestern hiker from AZ and we exchanged notes on where we thought the trail went. We ended up finding it as it crawled over onto the final ridge. I pulled ahead at this time and made the summit. And it was extraordinary. The Kofa Mountains are really something, and from where we were camped, we were really only getting half of the story. To the East (the direction that we couldn’t see from the ground) the mountains were a chain of blocky and broken peaks extending for miles. Added in with the other ranges in every direction and it really made the summit special. I would even say that this is one of the best AZ peaks!

My fellow hiker showed up shortly after me and we exchanged hiking notes and our love for the desert. She had parked further up the main access road as I had concluded. Then she decided to go a bit further and check out a radar repeater or something on a nearby peak. I opted to hunker down in the wind, eat my snacks, and enjoy the views. Soon another guy showed up. But he stayed about as long as it took him to sign the summit log and then went back down.

Once the second guy had left, I took up the summit log and put my name in along with all the others, then headed down myself. Going down was about as hard as going up just because of how steep the trail was and how worn out my hiking boots are. I very briefly considered going cross country and find a different way back to the car, maybe cutting off a couple miles, but the very shear cliffs that I could see (and most importantly couldn’t see) quickly dissuaded me from that avenue. I passed by at least one other couple heading up, but never caught up to hiker number 2. Back at the road, I was surprised to see that someone had in fact managed to drive all the way to the trailhead, but it was a Jeep, so I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised.

The entire walk back to the van was relatively uneventful. I determined that in the future we could probably drive out as far as the entrance to the canyon without too much problem based on the number of other vans who had made it that far. That would be fun, as then Jess and Charlotte could hike up into the canyon as well!

Jess: Curtis made it back in the late afternoon, and we enjoyed the rest of our time in this spot. The wind picked up quite a bit this evening, kicking up dust and obscuring the sunset from us. The next morning, the wind had died down a little, and we decided that we wanted to move a little further Southeast towards Tucson today. But before we left, we drove to the end of Palm Canyon Road to check out the trail. It turned out to be much too rocky for Charlotte, so Curtis stayed back at the parking lot so I could do a bit of wandering. I didn’t make it far enough to see the palms, but thoroughly enjoyed my quiet walk surrounded by desert plants and rocky canyon views. We hope to come back someday and see even more of these mountains together!